U.S. SUPREME COURT ASKED TO CONSIDER SAF, ANJRPC RIGHT TO CARRY CASE

[Dan W]

BELLEVUE, WA - The Second Amendment Foundation and Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs today asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the appeal in the challenge to New Jersey's unconstitutional carry laws. The case is Drake v. Jerejian .

Prepared by attorneys Alan Gura (who won Second Amendment victories in the groundbreaking Heller and McDonald cases) and David Jensen, today's petition is the latest effort to bring a right-to-carry case before the high court and is the next step in the process of resolving the differing opinions of lower courts on the right to bear arms for personal protection outside the home.

"The right to self-defense is sacrosanct," said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb, "yet has been disparaged and denied to all but an elite few in states like New Jersey. Individuals and families should not be deprived of the right to defend themselves and we intend to change that."

"This case could resolve the right to carry issue not only for New Jersey, but for the entire nation," added ANJRPC Executive Director Scott Bach. "So far the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the issue in other cases, but this case may be different due to the extreme nature of New Jersey's law, which effectively denies law-abiding citizens their fundamental right to self-defense outside the home."

"The petition is an exceptional piece of legal work that is well worth taking the time to read," Bach, an attorney, noted. "It extensively documents the differing of opinions of lower courts throughout the nation that need to be reconciled, and observes: The notion that carrying handguns outside the home is conduct falling outside the scope of the Second Amendment's guarantee' simply cannot be squared with Heller[H]istory, consensus, and simple common sense do not remotely support New Jersey's law, a relatively modern and intensely controversial regulation that exists in only a small handful of states'."

"It is time for the high court to clarify that the right to bear arms does not stop at someone's front door," Gottlieb observed. "What other constitutional right is confined to one's house? The Second Amendment was never meant to be encumbered with such a limitation, and it cannot possibly be interpreted that way, but it will take a Supreme Court ruling to convince lower courts and anti-gunners, and put this debate to rest."
 

[jFader]

I think that we got the right guys on our side with the second amendment foundation...I do worry a little when they say that the decision could affect other states carry laws positively. What if the decision goes the wrong way, could it negatively impact other states existing laws? Or if the supreme court decided that the 2nd Amendment "ended" at our front door?

[AWick]

I do worry a little when they say that the decision could affect other states carry laws positively. What if the decision goes the wrong way, could it negatively impact other states existing laws? Or if the supreme court decided that the 2nd Amendment "ended" at our front door?

If they take the case and rule against the SAF it doesn't overturn any carry laws but simply would say that NJ has the ability to say that the 2A stops at your door and could law the groundwork for other Anti-gun states to feel emboldened to pass similar legislation. They would do this because a law that should be unconstitutional will have been deemed constitutional. Think of the imagration laws AZ and other states are passing. If SCOTUS were to deem them constitutional that doesn't mean that there would automatically be the same laws applied in CA, NY and elsewhere, but States like NM, TX, NE and other would probably feel emboldened to pass similar laws. Either way the stakes are huge! Really if you look at Heller, McDonald, and some of the other recent ruling (such as forcing IL to adopt CCW) there really should be a body of work that smacks DUH... but leave it to SCOTUS to surprise the ever living daylights out of us!

Side rant: Out of the three days that SCOTUS deliberated Obamacare, the first day was dedicated to decided if they even could hear the case to begin with. That is because in order to consider the case they had to decide on the first day that the individual mandate was a penalty and not a tax. There is a rule that requires the person suing the government over a tax issue to first have the tax levied against said person. Since at the time the individual mandate didn't take effect for a few years so no case could have been made.SCOTUS agreed on the first day that the mandate was indeed a penalty not under the taxing law then came back for their ruling after the final two days to say, "Whoops! It's a tax folks!" ... I say their ruling should be considered null and void because they wouldn't have had grounds to rule on it as it was an unlevied tax and no person could make a claim against the government under that lawsuit.... but that's just me...